Biggest Winter Classic proves NHL has winning formula

This was not a great hockey game. Snow prevented that. Detroit's Brendan Smith said "Sometimes you're skating with the puck and then the puck was behind you,

Michael Rosenberg|

This was not a great hockey game. Snow prevented that. Detroit's Brendan Smith said "Sometimes you're skating with the puck and then the puck was behind you, because it hit a pile of snow or something. You get to see how good Pavel Datsyuk is because it almost didn't affect him." Datsyuk, though, told Babcock a few minutes into the game that everybody was being cautious because they were so scared of losing the puck.

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Published Jan 2, 2014

MICHAEL ROSENBERG

Michael Rosenberg is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, covering any and all sports. He writes columns, profiles and investigative stories and has covered almost every major sporting event. He joined SI in 2012 after working at the Detroit Free Press for 13 years, eight of them as a columnist. Rosenberg is the author of "War As They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler and America in a Time of Unrest." Several of his stories also have been published in collections of the year's best sportswriting. He is married with three children.

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